Comandante

Synopsis

Please join us for another outstanding film so unique it could only come from Italy. This film is a great movie to start our new season and promises to be another crowd pleaser. Don’t miss it!

At the beginning of the Second World War, Salvatore Todaro is in command of the submarine Cappellini of the Italian Royal Navy: a vessel with a steel-reinforced bow for improbable attempts at ramming, facing cannon fire while surfacing to confront the enemy face to face, and a crew armed with daggers for hand-to-hand combat. He is assigned to support the German U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.

In October 1940, the silhouette of a merchant ship with its lights off looms in the dark of night. This is the Kabalo, a Belgian ship, which suddenly opens fire on the submarine and its Italian crew. A brief battle ensues which ends when Todaro sinks the merchant ship. It is at this point that the commander reaches a decision that is destined to make history: to rescue the 26 Belgian survivors, who would otherwise have been condemned to drown in the middle of the ocean, and to disembark them at the nearest safe harbor, as required by the law of the sea. To take them all on board, he is forced to sail on the surface for three days, making himself visible to the enemy, risking his own life and those of his men, share scarce food, and take turns sleeping on the surface of the submarine.

This is where the movie takes on a new life. The Commander, Todaro, refused a direct order by the German command to let the enemy sailors drown. As an Italian, two thousand years of civilization would not allow him to follow those orders. Temper flare in the cramped spaces of the submarine, mistrust and resentment abounds, but the food is, of course, superior, with a top-notch chef on board.

This is not your typical war movie. The war is just a backdrop for the drama to follow. The story is about keeping your humanity during a time of war. “We will sink the steel with no mercy,” Todaro tells his crew. “But the men, the men we save.” Not everyone on the ship is on the same page, though, and we see how events shake out. When Todaro was asked by the Belgian captain why, he, as an enemy, risked his life and the life of his crew to save the enemy, Todaro calmly replies “Because I am Italian.”

Whether you like war movies or not, this is a story of humanity. This is a story of character, courage, compassion, and no matter what the politics, nationalities, beliefs or banners one follows, deep down we are all part of the human race and we need to take care of each other.

I could not pass up this movie up. It needs to be seen. A favorite with most international film festivals, this movie is not slated for showing in the Greater Rochester Area (or Southwest Florida for that matter). This is why it is so important to have organizations such as the Frank DiMino Casa Italiana at Nazareth University and Italian Film Series make these gems available to the public.

This film will not disappoint. Join us this one-time showing for a profile and lesson in our shared humanity and the human experience.

Directed by: Edoardo DeAngelis
Released: August 23, 2023
Length: 120 minutes

Director’s note: Who is truly strong? What does it mean to be Italian? I found myself wondering about this often in 2018 when I came across the enlightening story of Admiral Pettorino, reported on the occasion of the 123rd anniversary of the Italian Coast Guard. Pettorino, at a time when Italian ports were being closed to shipwreck survivors, and defenseless women, children and men were drowning at sea, needed to tell his sailors how to behave. He chose the road of the parable and told the extraordinary story of Salvatore Todaro, the Italian submariner who sank enemy ships during the war but saved men. This is what the law of the sea demands, this is how it has always been done, this is how it will always be done.

The man at the helm of a Roman trireme two thousand years ago is the same man who commanded a submarine in 1940 in the Atlantic in the middle of the war. That man’s name is Salvatore and he is strong. He sinks the iron of enemy ships without fear or mercy. But a defenseless enemy is no longer an enemy, but just another man, and so he saves him. Because the truly strong person is the one who is capable of reaching out to the weak, Salvatore knows the eternal laws that govern the sky and the sea, and he knows that they are superior to any other law: whoever saves one man, saves mankind.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Edoardo De Angelis is a director, screenwriter and producer, born in Naples in 1978. Before discovering cinema, he was an overweight ballet dancer, a rapper, a talentless actor and painter, a poet cursed only by himself, and a water polo player. Then, at the age of 19, he discovered cinema and made his first short films in the abandoned quarries and countryside of Caserta.

After graduating from Rome Film School, he made his debut with Mozzarella Stories (2011), followed by Perez (2014). The film that brought him fame is Indivisible (2016), the story of two Siamese twins who, thanks to their gift of bel canto, manage to feed their whole family. Presented at the Venice Days of the Venice Film Festival, it won the Pasinetti Prize for Best Film and a special mention for the twins Angela Fontana and Marianna Fontana making their debut, as well as six David di Donatellos, six Silver Ribbons, one Italian Golden Globe, eight Golden Ciaks and 50 other awards worldwide. This was followed by The Vice of Hope (2018), working alongside his wife Pina Turco, which earned him, among others, the Audience Award at the Rome Film Festival, Best Director and Best Actress at the Tokyo International Festival, a David di Donatello, three Silver Ribbons and three Golden Ciaks. His book of the film with the same name was published by Mondadori. In 2020, he directed an acclaimed Tosca for the San Carlo Theatre in Naples, and shot the film Natale in Casa Cupiello for RAI, based on Eduardo De Filippo’s masterpiece of the same name, with Sergio Castellitto and Marina Confalone. In 2021, he shot two more films for RAI based on the works of Eduardo De Filippo, Non ti Pago, with Sergio Castellitto and Maria Pia Calzone, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday with Sergio Castellitto and Fabrizia Sacchi. In 2022, he filmed the series produced by Fandango for Netflix, The Lying Life of Adults based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. In autumn 2022, the book Comandante will be published, a novelization of his film of the same name, co-written with Sandro Veronesi and published by Bompiani.

Comandante earned 22 nominations at international film festivals in 2024, ten of which with the prestigious David di Donatello awards.

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Directed By: Edoardo De Angelis

• Pierfrancesco Favino
• Massimiliano Rossi
• Johan Heldenbergh
• Arturo Muselli
• Giuseppe Brunetti
• Gianluca Di Gennaro
• Johannes Wirix
• Pietro Angelini
• Mario Russo
• Cecilia Bertozzi
• Paolo Bonacelli
• Silvia D’Amico